Megacable de Pereira

Pereira is a mid-sized Colombian city located nearly equidistant from the country’s three largest urban centres — Bogota, Medellin and Cali. Referred to as “mini-Medellin” by some due to its similar topography and climate, it perhaps is not a surprise that the City has taken major steps towards realizing its own Cable Propelled Transit (CPT) system.

From a cursory look, the urban gondola proposal, known locally as the Megacable de Pereira, has received zero coverage outside of Colombia and has basically slipped the radar of all transport news outlets, including yours truly. However, thanks to loyal readers, we’ve received some snippets of the proposal.

The current alignment is a 3.4km cable car that is designed to connect four station areas — Olaya Herrera Park, Pereira Transport Terminal, Pereira Technological University and Villa Santana. A total of 60,000 persons are expected to benefit from this service.

The aerial ropeway will operate as part the mass transit network and provide users an opportunity to switch onto the City’s bus rapid transit network, Megabús, at Olaya Herrera Park.

Megacable de Pereira Route Alignment. Screenshot from YouTube.

This particular rendition of the gondola seems to stem from the 2015 campaign promises made by Pereira’s current mayor, Juan Pablo Gallo.

Projected to open in 2019, Megacable will be Colombia’s longest public transit gondola (3.4km) and become the country’s fifth city to build a CPT line after Cali, Medellin, Manizales and Bogota (scheduled to open April 2018).

Back in September, the tender for the Megacable was released with an upset limit of US$40.1 million (COP 118 billion). Two firms, one led by Doppelmayr and one led by POMA, responded to proposal with bids coming in lower than the ceiling amount.

A decision on the winner is expected to take place next week on December 5. Stay tuned.